Right now I’m working with a team of developers on the ReadThisNext mobile app – they are working in Swift, and I am building the Rails API. That means every week or so they send a new build, and ask me to fix things that are broken with the API. Recently they ask why the “Create Post” action was not working.

After some sleuthing, the error messages were telling me that Create Post was triggering Create Book which was triggering Soulmate (the plugin that adds books to search results). The problem is, when you create a post with a book_id included, this should not happen. Create Post should only create a book if book_id is missing.

This was all through the curl command, which I use to test the endpoints I send to developers.

I went to check the same action through the web interface. Oddly enough, it was still hitting Soulmate, because it gave me an error unless Redis (works with Soulmate) was running.

I tried removing the command that would add a new book if book_id was empty and still got an error in curl saying book_id was empty because the validation is set to prevent a post from being created without a book. On the web, I could add a post with the correct book successfully.

It seemed like curl wasn’t recognizing that I had included the book_id. I tried changing the validations to after_create or after_validation, just in case the Rails validations were only seeing text in a text box and not in the curl command for some reason. That didn’t work.

I tried searching for this problem and came up with nothing. My general rule with programming is that, if you have a problem, it’s likely that someone else has had it before. When I can’t find it with a simple Google search, something is fishy.

Because it was working on web, I knew it had to be something to do with the curl command, so I asked a question on Stack Overflow. The first comment was: “’twould be helpful to include the controller code that you hit with that POST.” I wish people on Stack Overflow didn’t have to sound like such dicks when they ask obvious questions.

But, as I went to find the Create Post code which he was referring to, I decided to include another bit that tells Rails which attributes it is allowed to update. I thought I had checked this before, but I hadn’t – because book_id was missing. I must have checked the code for web, which is on a different page.

After 1+ hours of working on this solo, it saved me a ton of time to post it on Stack Overflow, even if someone else didn’t technically answer my question. Otherwise I might have given up and removed a feature, or tried to build around it, when the answer was really very simple!

This is by far the most personal story I’ve written (well, and published). And, for the first time since I quit my jobs at a local coffeeshop and as a yoga instructor, pre-grad school, my work resulted in a “thank you.” Friends and strangers responded saying they were glad I had written this, I’m not sure if it gave them ideas on how to tackle student debt, or if the depth of the story accurately portrayed how crushing a wall of debt can be (even once you’ve gotten that great job the education promised you). It was incredibly fulfilling to write this, and I hope it’s the start of more of this type of writing for me.

I am working on an app for book recommendations called ReadThisNext. Awhile back, I read an excerpt from The Power of Habit where the marketing research behind Febreze was discussed. They couldn’t sell the product because people with smelly homes were unaware their homes smelled, so they studied how people clean their houses, and found that many people would pause for a moment upon finishing, to survey and admire their work. That because the narrative in commercials – a person cleans, then sprays Febreze to top it off.

What does that mean for a book app? Early in the process, I ignored any potential of ReadThisNext being an app a person would use every day. The “every day” metric is attractive to venture capitalists, but as an average reader, I only need a new book once each month or so. Right now I’m making a decision on a layout issue, and it’s come up again: What if ReadThisNext could be an app you use every day? Do people who like books even read every day? Would they just check it to see what others are reading? I became very curious about people’s reading habits.

Luckily, I did not need to spend money on market research or visit people’s homes to watch them clean. I considered posting a question on Reddit, but there was no need – my exact question has been ask 10+ times. I browsed the answers, and this is what I found.

Many people read before they go to bed and night, but lots of people read in chunks, so they’ll read a few books, then nothing for several months. Most people need it to be quiet or listen to instrumental music. There’s a common theme of fear of how technology breaks reading habits – do you read less, now that you read articles in between tasks, and is your attention span dropping? Yet, your eyes are sore from staring at screens all day, so there’s an uptick in physical books … unless you’re traveling. Many people like to carry a book wherever they go.

Here are some of the most interesting snippets from Redditors talking about their reading habits.

I just like treating the book itself as a work of art. I go out of my way to get what I deem the best edition possible, in terms of quality and cover art. It’s all part of the package, I want it as pristine as possible.

I always finish reading so I start on a page on the right side of the book when opening it.

I always have an audiobook, ebook, and hardcover/paperback going at once.

Ebook for when I am outside of the house, hardcover/ebook for home typically and then I got a audiobook for when I am occupied for other things.

Wherever I go, I bring a book with me. Even if I’m reading something on my phone at the time, I still end up bringing along at least one book.

Right now, I’m in the middle of six books – Gardens of The Moon, The Robots of Dawn, American Gods, Lolita, Prince of Thorns and The Coming of The Third Reich.

My current reads are The Blinding Eye by Brent Weeks in hardcover, Dragonfly Falling by Adrian Tchaikovsky on my Kobo, and A Crown of Swords by Robert Jordan on audiobook.

Every now and then I binge and go on rereading sprees, and other times I may go a few weeks to months and not read anything bookwise.

If I really enjoyed a book I will read it again immediately after. It’s like the first reading sated a hunger but the second reading is savouring it.

I can’t finish a book if I don’t have a new one to start.

I have a book only for the bathroom, other for the university’s bus and other for reading at home.

Also I have the habit of write the paragraphs or sentences that I like the most in a notebook

I also have a non-fiction that I read at home too and tend to try and read a bit of that each night.

I normally read like 5 books at the same time, hardback, paperback for the tub, audio book on my phone,

I can’t wait to finish a book to start the next one. Because of this i’m reading 7 books at this moment. audio book on cd in the car, and kindle.

the only advantage digital text has is that it travels better.My eyes are growing fatigued from my monitor though and I feel like I need to cut back to actual print.

I definitely recommend the suggestion of tracking your progress. I used the same method when I was trying to regain my heroin habit, and now I’m back to using every day!

focus too much when reading. I will literally tune everything else in the world out except for the words on the page until I’m done :/.

I have to read in the quiet, and for that reason I read mostly either before I go to sleep, or after I wake up while laying in bed.

I also read almost entirely on my bed, although this sometimes backfires at night because my brain goes into sleepy mode and I can’t concentrate on the book as much. I have to make sure I’m sitting upright so I can maintain some level of alertness … I won’t read unless I have a large chunk of time to do it. A lot of people say they read every time they have a spare 5 or 10 minutes, but I can’t imagine doing that. Before I can read, I need to know that I have at least an hour or so in a quiet spot so that I can completely immerse myself in the book.

I have a secluded spot on my campus that over looks some of the busier areas but I am able to be left alone. As for music I can only listen to instrumentals while I read, lyrics get me distracted too easily. Also, I’ve noticed that I need something to drink when I read (water, beer, coffee, wine, etc.).Go on a reading hype, read four or five books within a few weeks, then stop completely for a month. Rinse and repeat.

I read for several hours at a time.

I start feeling sleepy before I reach the end of a chapter, so I look for a two line break to stop.

Reading on a Sunday morning is the best shit. In fact, reading while shitting is the best shit I’m sure.

I usually push myself to finish the chapter, get hooked into the next chapter that I force myself to finish and it’s a vicious cycle until I look at the clock and realize that I have to wake up in an hour.

Chapter? More like book. I’ve missed so many nights sleep because I though “eh, there’s only a hundred pages left.”

Also to get yourself in a place where something like the internet isn’t even an option helps focus your energy. I take a train every morning to work and there’s no wifi or anything, so it helped.

You can make deals with yourself – 10 minutes reading before you are allowed to play a game, or watch a movie. Start short and easy. If you find good books you’ll end up wanting to read just one more page, or just finish one more chapter.

Maybe it sounds silly, but I often set reasonable daily minimums for most of my hobbies: X amount of pages in the book I’m reading, Y amount of minutes in whatever game(s) I’m currently playing, Z episodes of the show I’m watching, etc. Once those are met, I just go back to what I’m feeling more that day (or just save it for last).

Maybe start an account at Goodreads? It gives you the ability to start a queue of books (sort of like Netflix), which helps keep track of books people recommend you as well as finding new stuff similar to what you already like. If you’ve got friends on there all the better.

My home can be distracting and it is quite easy to play a video game or watch a movie instead of read. Going to a coffee shop with a book or Library seems an effective way to keep me focused on my task.

I find reading relaxing so I always set time to read before I go to sleep. I go to bed around 11:00 p.m. on weeknights so my schedule usually consists of video games from 7-9, some Netflix from 9-10 and then reading until 11:00.

When I want to read, I’ll head to a crappy dive bar, get a beer and find a nice secluded corner. My book and beer isn’t a chore, it is a sacred ritual that preserves my sanity.

one habit I started on really young was that I took a book with me everywhere. I read quite a bit less in college but I would always take a book with me so if I had a bit of time

also used to work on the top floor of a very tall office building. If I had a book I was actually engrossed enough in – I was actually able to read a page or two on the elevator ride up.

carry a book around with you for any time spent sitting and waiting and try and pull the book out instead of your phone. Those are almost the only times I get to read and you can still get through a decent amount.

I often go a month or two without reading because I’m busy with classes. But then I’ll decide to pick up a new book when I have an easy week, and all of my free time after that is spent binge reading until I finish the book.

Now I find myself reading before bed. I don’t exactly schedule it, but when the evening is winding down I just grab a book, find a comfy spot to sit, and settle in.

My favorite place to read is in the bathtub. Typically, I will take a bath somewhere between 45 minutes and 2 hours and read most of the time.

I generally only read on the bus/train going to or from school and in bed before going to sleep.

I tend to read right after work. And I keep Goodreads to have a view of the progress made and what I will read next.

I try to read for pleasure for at least ten minutes every night before I go to bed.

If I’m reading for fun I’m more likely to binge read all day and then not at all for a brief period. During the summer, I read more literary fiction and nonfiction that’s only potentially related to my work. During winter break, I read mindless pulp novels or nonfiction that’s relevant to an immediate project.

Always carry a book with you to read at any quiet moments during your day

I would just start a reading journal. It always helps to see the ‘progress’ you make. Find a book that you haven’t ready that you loved or one that you’ve never read and just get through as much as you can or want to, write the title of the book and the page you got to, then cross it off when you’re done. The accomplishment of scratching off a whole page is addictive. try it in baby steps like that.

Maybe find a quiet space (not your bed) where you can hole up for a little while every night with a cup of cocoa or some other treat and just let yourself sink into the book.

Ever since I started using the Internet, my ability to focus on and read a single book has deteriorated. It reminds me of how after the printing press was invented, many people lost the skill of committing literature to memory.

Try setting aside the last hour of each day to read in bed before you go to sleep. You get the time to read, and the hour of relaxation helps you sleep better.

When I read fiction I get much more out of the book if I read it at a leisurely pace, take time to visualize scenes and use my subvocalization as a narrator and actor. I might not read as many books as I would if I used speed reading, but that’s not really why I read fiction in the first place.

The whole beauty of literature is that it slows you down and brings you to a new mental place. The experience of the journey matters; the speed does not.

Tricks for retention? For me, writing about what I’m reading helps me connect to it more deeply. And bookmarking interesting/powerful/important parts to reread later.

Ever since I got my Kindle I cannot finish a book. It’s weird.

I can read anywhere from 1 book every couple of days to multiple books a day. I also go through periods where I don’t really read anything usually because of stress.

Won’t read anything for six months, and then I spend two weeks reading a book a day.

This is a summary of the talk I gave at Dreamers // Doers Lightning Talks on Sunday.

An MVP, or minimum viable product, is the most basic version of a startup product that users will use, or customers will buy. It’s important to start with an MVP because then you don’t waste time building something that nobody will use.

A lot of people see big startups as “overnight successes” but that’s not the case. I love a quote from an Uber founder where he says “everyone forgets the first couple of years because you are toiling in obscurity."

This is what toiling in obscurity looks like for me.

It was April 2012 when I decided I wanted to start a startup, I was fresh off getting laid off from a wonderful startup I had worked for which had run out of money. I liked books, so I thought I’d do a company around books. I had interned for a literary agent in college and knew the process of finding the best manuscripts was incredibly inefficient, so I thought I could fix that.

After some thought, I realized that even if I could find the best manuscripts, I would still need to sell them. Marketing was a bigger problem for books.

So I decided to create the best online storefront for books, a digital experience that felt like walking around a bookstore. If it worked, I could start accepting manuscript submissions later. In the meantime, I moved to New York and got a job.

In NYC, I began searching for a technical co-founder. I went to a lot of tech events, sometimes signing up for something every day after work. I met a lot of people who were looking for a technical co-founder … and quickly stopped going to events, and decided to teach myself programming.

In April 2013, I had lots of hand drawn pictures of what my site would look like, and had narrowed down a lot of versions of what wouldn’t work. I went to a Publishing Hackathon that was focused on book publishing, mostly to see what the competition would be like, and find out what others were working on. A friend came with me and we build the first-ever prototype of the site.

It was one of 6 finalists out of 30 teams. The judges — who worked in book publishing — really liked it. So I spent the summer building it in Ruby on Rails.

That September, I submitted it to another competition, applied to YCombinator, and showed it to a couple close friends and family members. It was then called Coverlist, and was literally a list of book covers that you could favorite or vote on, sort of like a "hot or not for books.” People didn’t really get it — it looked nice but there was no hook, like why would you come back to this site instead of just going somewhere else. It was minimum, sure, but not viable.

So I went back to the drawing board. I thought about quitting the project and writing a book instead. I talked to a bunch of people — an author, a bookstore manager, a book cover designer, someone who worked in marketing for a big publisher. I played with a version where users could make their own list of books, and a version where users would write micro-reviews, sort of like a Twitter for books.

Then I realized that authors essentially do write micro-reviews for each other’s books — author blurbs commonly appear on the back cover of a new release. I decided to create book recommendations around author blurbs.

I pitched the idea to a fellow book lover I worked with, and she got it. In August 2014, I built it, and in September, I started cold-emailing authors to see if they were interested in joining. About 10% were signing up, and once I had about 100 authors on the site, I asked my friend to join as co-founder. Now we have half of an MVP — we have the product functionality, but not the content, so that’s what we’re working on in the first part of 2015.

We still have a lot of work to do.

One thing that has inspired me through toiling in obscurity is this idea from Steven Pressfield’s ‘Do The Work.’ He describes any creative work as it’s own being which exists inside your imagination, and as creator you are breathing life into it.

“A work-in-progress generates its own energy field. You, the artist or entrepreneur, are pouring love into the work; you are suffusing it with passion and intention and hope. This is serious juju. The universe responds to this. It has no choice.”

When I think of ReadThisNext, I think of the book empire it desires to be — as founder, I am simply chipping away at the obstacles each day.

It’s always excited to hear someone say they quit their job to work on their own thing, whether it’s a startup, or a music career, or something else. But I’ll admit, there are times when I’ve wondered — really? But … food? Rent?

Who ARE these people who can just quit working and work on something that doesn’t pay, and might not pay, at least for awhile. It would be easy to assume that these are special people who have rich parents, still helping them out well into their 20s. In New York, people who once worked in finance seem to be able to pull off not working and without income for awhile.

I got laid off from a job once and made it maybe 2.5 months thanks to a little freelance work, but it wasn’t like I had a buffer — I had to get moving asap.

So when I decided to start a company, I was baffled as to how I might pull this off. To make matters worse, I had steep student loans — to put it into perspective, my loan payment matched my rent each month.

What I’ve found is that there IS no “how to” on this topic because every person does it differently. Each person has their own situation, but if you want to start a company, you figure yours out.

Without the support of a significant other, or rich parents, or a high-paying job that nets you lots of savings, and even with student loans, it IS possible to start a company that you’ll eventually work on it full time.

Here’s mine, plus a few other ideas mixed in.

1. Work your company into your day job

I wanted to start a startup that would somehow gamify the process of selecting the best book manuscripts, then edit them and market them to readers. I’ve worked for a literary agent and gotten paid to edit a full-length manuscript that was self-published. I could have started a service company and gotten paid per project — then scaled it and turned it into the platform I envisioned.

But, I decided that wasn’t the best entry point into the type of business I wanted to run.

2. Lots of savings

A friend recently quit her job with a years’ worth of savings (she also lives with her significant other). She also has student loans.

My personal opinion is that you should have at least six months savings before quitting a job. Any less and you’re giving yourself unneeded stress and that won’t help your company.

A year is good — but I took the opposite route, and while I have nearly no savings (I DO have an emergency fund), my student loans are almost paid off, which reduces my monthly expenses, for when I do finally quit my job.

3. Move to Thailand

I read about a guy who moved to Thailand to bootstrap his startup. I haven’t been to Thailand and would love an excuse, but this goes back to the savings question — although you could get further on less savings, or you could do remote freelance jobs, as long as the time to payment ratio still gave you enough time to work on your own stuff.

4. Move home with parents

I’ll be honest — I didn’t ever really consider this. I lived with my parents right after grad school. They are wonderful, but retired, and very leisurely, and arrange their days around morning coffee, mid-morning coffee, and afternoon coffee. I love going home and resting, but I wouldn’t get any work done.

There’s also something to be said for surrounding yourselves with a community of likeminded people who will drive and inspire you to get sh*t done.

5. Work nights and weekends

This is, of course, what I did. I worked at Mashable for two years while teaching myself programming and eventually building ReadThisNext on the side. I’ve worked at a startup and I’ve worked at a coffee shop, and neither of those was conducive to building something creative on the side. At the startup, I poured my heart into the day job, and at the coffee shop, I was literally just too exhausted to do anything after work, and had no extra money, so I had to make up for it by cooking at home consistently, which takes up time and effort.

The salaried job that I enjoyed was ideal. I actually found the days I was more creative and proactive at work, I came home energized and excited to do more work on my own stuff. There was no upside to being lazy at work. A couple times I actually turned research I was doing on my own (about fundraising, about startup accelerators) into stories I wrote for Mashable, so everyone benefitted.

When I came to Bustle, I not only had just moved into a cheaper apartment but the raise meant I could finally afford to invest some of my own money into my company. I could potentially start paying a developer to build features faster than I could myself (having to teach myself as I went). I felt like Westley and Buttercup when they came out of the Fire Swamp and had defeated the various dangers — Hey, I could do this happily for some time!

(and therein lies the problem. When you start a company, comfort is the enemy.)

6. Do freelance or part time work

I’m going to be starting Monday with a team of journalists at Facebook. The role involves working some nights and weekends, and flexible hours, so I’ll have some daytimes free to do meetings for my company. It’s a really great job. If you told Grad School Me that I would get this job, I wouldn’t have believed you — back then I wasn’t sure I’d get any job in journalism. Much less have THAT job, and my own functioning and beautiful startup MVP, and freelance writing clients.

My cofounder also has a steady job and we’re both able to commit a healthy number of hours each week to ReadThisNext WITH confidence that we don’t need investment asap or revenue asap. I am quite happy with the setup, and for us to take our time finding the right business model and the right user experience.

When you work on a startup, I think you have to have a sense for timing. You think raising money would be a huge success — but all that does is give you an end date, a big red deadline. Who needs that kind of pressure? Get product-market fit first. Then get revenue first. Weigh your risks, and take the best ones.

And yes, that includes ebooks and audiobooks. More people in the U.S. want to write a book than are reading books. There’s a process problem here. Sure, vanity plays into it — the desire to “have written” a book, have a piece of print with your name on it, versus sitting down for hours each day typing words.

But I believe part of the problem is that people aren’t able to find the right books. When you read a book, it’s like finding a message in a bottle that means something to you. Sometimes you want to write a book because nobody’s written the book that you’d like to read. If we were consistently able to find good books we wouldn’t want so badly to write them ourselves.

It’s like the classic process problem: You have the guy who digs the hole, the guy who plants the tree, and the guy who refills the hole. But one day guy No. 2 is sick and doesn’t make it to work and suddenly you have a guy digging a hole and another guy filling it up. Oops.

You might have followed this lovely tutorial to add the even lovelier SearchKick gem to your Rails app: https://shellycloud.com/blog/2013/10/adding-search-and-autocomplete-to-a-rails-app-with-elasticsearch

But, if you’re like me, you got a little stuck when deploying to Heroku.

First, SearchKick is a gem that uses Elasticsearch and you did start by installing Elasticsearch. Bonsai’s first tier is free, so it’s a good option if you’re already using Heroku. But, when you follow the Bonsai setup instructions on Heroku, you might be confused as to why you need to add the elasticsearch-rails gem, the elasticsearch-model gem, and the bonsai-elasticsearch-rails gem to your app. You don’t need these! You have SearchKick, which has Elasticsearch in it.